Over the last decade tremendous progress has been reported on new robot applications across manufacturing, service and healthcare sectors. The utilization of robots is expected to grow significantly over the next decade due to advanced in new material, sensors and computing. We will see major new applications in manufacturing to empower the workforce, the service sector will be optimized to give increased agility at a reduced cost and in healthcare we will continue to promote independent living for an aging society. Most of the new applications will require new systems to have a close interaction with human users in terms of physical and cognitive cooperation. In this presentation we will discuss the main challenges identified in the US National Robotics Roadmap. In addition we will describe some of the main technical challenges that have motivated new progress on high precision manufacturing using robot systems, design of mapping and localization techniques for long-term autonomy from vacuum cleaners to UAV system, and design of human-robot interaction for cooperation with inexperienced users. Finally we will discuss some of the core science challenges to be addressed for next generation robotics.

Dr. Henrik I Christensen is a distinguished professor of computing, the KUKA Chair of Robotics and Founding Executive Director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned his first degree in ME and subsequently received M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark. His research is focused on a holistic approach to design of robot systems. He has published more than 300 contributions across the areas of computer vision, robotics and AI. Dr. Christensen serves on the editorial board of numerous journals in robotics and computer vision and is the Editor in Chief of Trends and Foundations in Robotics. He was awarded the Joseph Engelberger Award 2011 - the highest honor bestowed by the robotics industry and named Boeing Supplier of the Year 2012. Dr. Christensen is the co-founder of 5 companies. He is also the founder of the US National Robotics Virtual Organization and was the main authors of the US Robotics Roadmaps - From Internet to Robotics, 2009 and 2013 respectively. He serves as a consultant to companies and government agencies across 4 continents.